The smoldering slow-match puffed an acrid plume of smoke and sparks when it met the touch-hole. A pause. Then the arquebus leapt, driving my shoulder back before it, the forked support dropping into the churned mud of the battlefield. Whether or not I struck anyone with the tumbling lead ball I never knew. The roil of smoke from the muzzle of my cumbersome gun joined with that of the two hundred others, generating a shifting, ephemeral curtain that masked the advance of the enemy. The reverberations of the gunfire hammered my ears like a rockslide at a marble quarry. I was unable to hear the thrumming release of a hundred arbalests sending heavy quarrels through the smoke, the crossbowmen supplementing the arquebus barrage.

The clamoring in my head eased enough to hear the ragged return volley. It was largely ineffectual. The bulky firearms are awkward to employ on the move. A ball harrowed through the mud a couple of feet to my left. A bellow that modulated from shock to pain came from nearby to my right. At least one ball had found a mark. No quarrels hummed by, the enemy perhaps disdaining the arbalest as superannuated technology.

The artificial fog concealing the advance shredded and there they were. High boots over tight leggings. A few steel breastplates, but mostly padded brigantines and leather jerkins. A smattering of arched morion helmets. And, of more immediate interest, pikes, ranseurs, swords. Really not much to differentiate their lot from ours, though they tended to wear some sort of badge in a hue of blue while we sported red: a baldric, sash, spray of plumage, or some such. I didn't pay the details a great deal of attention, being far more concerned with weaponry than accessories. Roughly five hundred defenders were left after yesterday's set-to. About what the Captain had suggested in his pre-battle harangue. Behind the enemy, less than a mile distant and surrounded by a curtain wall, rose the castello, the target of this entire affair.

I let the arquebus fall and hauled free my cinqueada, then supplemented the short sword by filling my left hand with my main gauche. I'd left my rapier with the luggage train. The thin blade is more suited for single combat and urban engagements. Against armor the sturdy blade of the cinqueada is more practical. I spared an envious glance at the katzbalger wielded by my immediate comrade-in-arms, one of the northern mercenaries serving in the condotta. The long, heavy blade of the katzbalger was just the thing for dealing with the oncoming thicket of polearms.

And then the assault crashed into us and my perception contracted to the immediate square footage before me. I batted aside a thrusting pike, the cinqueada scraping along the steel head before gouging a sliver from the shaft. I stepped forward, main gauche plunging across my body to dig into the leading wrist. The pikeman drew back, to be immediately replaced by another assailant who drove the hooked blade of a ranseur at my chest. Seemed a world away from the parry-and-riposte of the fencing salle back in Plenum, but the required moves were similar enough that I reacted instinctively. The chaos of the battle wasn't just another sparring session or even a duel, but I fell into the rhythm and focused concentration I was accustomed to, losing myself in the mayhem for I don't know how long. Whatever the length, I was sheened with perspiration, hair sweat-plastered to my scalp, when I felt the pressure begin to ease, the enemy beginning to draw back.

That was, of course, right when they sent a demon rampaging through our ranks.

I hadn't anticipated that. In my experience one expected a magus somehow involved in a summoning. And that meant a Member of the Collegium. To my knowledge the Prefect whose domain we were intent on conquering was not a Member of the Collegium, nor had he ever been one. In fact scuttlebutt was the Collegium had backed our expedition, tacitly, practically, and financially. So who had conjured the demon?

It was an interesting conundrum, the solution to which would have to wait. The shifting of the press, the wavering of weapons, the occasional fully armored figure tossed bodily, all traced the demon's general heading. And I was right in the path.

The enemy had pulled back, clearing the way for the war-demon to handle the killing. I exchanged glances with a knot of comrades who'd come through the fighting together without serious wounds.

One of the northerners, a blonde-bearded fellow standing a good head taller than me – in fact the very fellow whose katzbalger I'd envied – nodded. “Here he comes, Cesar.” He knew my name. How did he do that? I'd been with the condotta a week and barely recalled the names of four or five of my fellows.

Again, the answer could wait. Blackened talons gripped the arm and shoulder of the soldier-for-hire immediately before me. With the sword in his free hand the mercenary hacked desperately at the figure looming above him, then uttered a horrified shriek as his arm was wrenched completely free of his body.

The demon discarded both pieces and moved on to the next victims. He towered about eight feet tall, a thickly muscled form covered with a scaly hide like a viper's – if vipers grew to the size of oxen. And no snake's scales grew that thick. Teeth like inch-long steel spikes were bared in a ferocious display. This wasn't a creature who chewed its food, just shredded and swallowed. If demons ate. Yellow eyes glared at us beneath a thickly ridged brow.

I'd have been terrified if I hadn't dealt with similar situations a time or two before. In fact the armor I was wearing was a souvenir of one such event. Well, not the armor itself – just a high-necked jerkin, really. But sewn into pockets covering the most vital areas were pieces of a peculiar metal hammered to conform to the pockets' dimensions. The metal had once been a prison or repository for a demon and it retained certain protective or repelling properties.

So I wasn't terrified when I stepped up to face his assault. Not happy. Not bubbling with confidence. Just – not terrified.

He drove the talons of his right hand at my chest, intending to skewer me like a morsel of chicken breast on the tines of a fork. Absurdly ambitious of course: I'm not a tall man but I'm built like a stevedore, with a chest like a beer keg. His talons were nowhere near long enough to transfix me. They hurt though. While they failed to penetrate the thin plate sewn into the front of my jerkin, the force of the blow stopped me mid stride and nearly drove the air from my lungs.

But the surprise stopped the demon short as well. He visibly hesitated, not sure precisely why I wasn't spraying blood like a punctured wineskin. In that pause I delivered a terrific backhand at the still extended right arm. A blow like that would have lopped off the limb of a man. I managed to dig the edge about an inch deep, just wedging it into the bone up to the blade's first fuller.

The demon snorted, pained, and drew back his arm, dragging me with him as I maintained my grip on the cinqueada. He raised me, dangling, to meet him at eye level.

“I am going to eat your face,” he said. The statement was flatly matter of fact, despite being uttered in a voice like a mill-stone crushing broken glass. So maybe they did eat.

Distracted and hampered by my weight dragging down his arm he was unable to make good his threat before my fellows bore in, hacking away.

Even so, he still might have done for us all if a war-demon of our own hadn't been sent into the fray. Proof that the Collegium's backing was substantial. They'd not provided an Arch-magus, no white-bearded Primate vying for a red hat, but certainly no Catechuman either, not if he could conjure up a bruiser that size. An Adept or Deacon at the least.

That was enough for the enemy. Those who didn't surrender or scatter fled back to the castle.

The day was ours. Maybe I'd get paid soon.

When I'd scratched my mark, just over a week ago, next to a scrawl of symbols the recruiter insisted represented 'Cesar' I'd received a single, shaved silver denari. A token, but sufficient compensation to form a contract. Wages would not be paid up front. I, for one, was appalled by the cynicism displayed by this tacit affront to my honesty and rectitude.

The thing was I could use a pile of money just now, but just as urgently I needed to remove my ass from Plenum. Signing on with a condotta fit my needs. I'd done it before when my fortunes ebbed to damp stone and gasping shore-fish. It wasn't ideal; I'm a city denizen and no bivouac-accustomed soldier. I dislike either giving or receiving orders. But a campaign offered egress from the city and the promise of loot. Both timely prospects.

Plenum had recently become a trifle unhealthy for me. As a bravo I accept certain risks. Instigating duels, for a fee, at the behest of those reluctant to mix it up personally, presupposed the possibility of coming in second. That hadn't happened to me yet, though I carried enough scars to demonstrate the dangers of my profession. But in addition to the obvious physical hazard of sharpened steel there were more insidious hazards: magistrates, bailiffs, and those with the money and influence to wield them – instead of a rapier - as a weapon.

I don't wish to rehash the incident. So, a simple summation: a certain candidate for a tribuneship had engaged me to pick a quarrel with his opponent for the open seat. That had gone well enough, first blood drawn publicly. However, instead of resulting in the defeated man's disgrace and withdrawal, he'd garnered public sympathy and overwhelmingly won the election. And immediately brought to bear upon me the weight of the civic authority of Plenum proper. Compared with that of the Collegium – the true power in Plenum and points beyond – such weight was relatively light, but still sufficient to crush a societal nonentity and marginal character such as myself.

Without coin to combat the Tribune with advocates in court (rather than drawn swords in an open courtyard) I'd yielded the field for the time being, abandoning the city a step ahead of the city watchmen prosecuting the arrest warrant.

And thus I signed on with the Condottiere, Captain Auquins. The Captain possessed a reputation as a winner, ruthless but punctilious. He'd been employed by the Aedile Claudio who espoused some sort of claim – specious or otherwise – to the lands governed by the Prefect Orfeo, one of the petty Prefectures clustered north of Plenum, plentiful within a couple hundred miles, but less numerous as one neared lands claimed by northerners. The perpetually churning rumor mill of the condotta's mercenaries held that the Collegium backed the Aedile's cause, though how one of Plenum's money-shuffling bureaucrats rated a provincial Prefecture in the first place gave the rumor mill unlimited grist for speculation.

Still, the rumors had proven correct about the Collegium's backing. Its representative – cassock immaculate despite the mud – stood near the Captain and the Aedile, clearly integrated into the condotta’s command structure. Captain Auquins stood atop a caisson, delivering his remarks in a resonant baritone. Several oxen roamed nearby, temporarily freed from their traces, grazing fruitlessly in the furrowed muck. Another caisson, and three bombards weighing down their gun carriages to the wheel hubs, hunkered nearby.

Off to one side humped two piles of corpses, theirs and ours, though it wasn't readily apparent which was which. It wasn't a sight I expected or wanted to get used to. In my line of work I seldom generated corpses as a byproduct, let alone heaps of them. First blood usually sufficed. A matter of degree, I suppose. I had no claim to moral superiority over these hired soldiers. Paid fighters, the lot of us. Why we did it remained an open question. Different for each man, I guess. I wondered if seeing – and smelling - this harvest led them to the same proposition I was mulling: maybe I should have learned a different trade.

“You fought well today,” the Condottiere was saying. “The enemy is routed. Those not fled are cowering behind yon walls.

“I dispatched heralds to offer terms. The sad news is that they were rebuffed. The castello will not yield. The happy news: we now need not offer quarter. Once taken it is yours to pillage.”

He paused while the condotta broke out in a cheer. The wages of those of us who survived the campaign would pale compared to the potential spoils a vigorous looter could gain in an overrun town or an important fortification. Or even this modest outpost.

He waited until the exuberance subsided. “Yes. Take it and it is yours. With a single exception. Within the keep, probably housed in the library, is a quarto volume. I will see hanged any man who damages or attempts to abscond with it. Aedile Claudio, our principal, will elaborate.”

Auquins assisted the Aedile in hoisting his corpulent frame atop the caisson. “Thank you Captain Auquins. As the Captain said, there is a quarto volume, a certain book, approximately this big” - here he mimed a rectangle roughly the length of the distance from my elbow to the tips of my fingers and about two thirds of that wide. “It will appear smaller and, likely, newer than the other books you might encounter. It will be furnished in silver and bound with silver banding. Take what else you wish. That quarto is mine.”

Quarto volume. I knew the term. Reading isn't a skill a bravo from the gutters of Plenum is likely to possess. But I was not without friends. Domenico, my fencing master, could read. He even owned a second-hand instructional manual, an illustrated folio volume diagramming basic fencing technique. It was a prestigious possession; printing remains a novelty. Even I was aware that mechanically reproduced pages represented an improvement from hand-copied texts. And progress didn't stop there. The advances followed one after the other. Already folio volumes – massive, awkward things capable of performing emergency duty as dining tables – were being threatened with obsolescence by the recently introduced quarto volume. The cleverly folded sheets nested and stitched into signatures could be bound into more manageable volumes. They were the future of the printers' art. Until pushed aside by the next innovation.

Still, it hardly seemed worth all this fuss for a book. Even the sale of an entire library probably would not fetch enough to reimburse the Aedile (or whoever actually paid) for the cost of this expedition. It was enough to raise a degree of curiosity in a humble bravo as to the contents of said quarto volume. Also, certain muted regrets concerning a humble bravo's illiteracy.

Another reason soldiering is not for me: knee deep in gripping mud helping an ox team to drag a massive bombard into position is a miserable experience. I am never called on to do that as a free agent in the city. I could, however, see as easily as the most experienced soldier here why the big guns were necessary. There was a wall between the condotta and the castello. I could figure even more: while I am neither an artillerist, nor a fortification engineer, I was fairly certain the bombards were going to get us past the obstacle in fairly short order. A glacis of earth and timber had been thrown up before the wall. It looked a recent effort and none too thorough. The turf was fresh and sections of the supporting logs peeked through. The original towers, set at intervals along the wall to subject attackers to flanking arrow shot, had been newly resurfaced, a convex shell encasing the front face of each originally square bastion. I grasped the theory well enough: slanted surfaces to deflect cannonballs up and diminish their velocity, rounded walls to perform similar functions laterally. But it was an exercise in retrofitting and an incomplete one at that. A fortification designed to truly withstand a modern artillery siege required more than this hasty patch job.

I might even have felt sorry for those inside were I not mud begrimed, splattered, and plastered. I had my doubts of any laundress being able to return this outfit to pristine condition. And I am fastidious about my attire, as is any self-respecting bravo. Yet another indication that the martial profession is not for me.

I had time to scrape off the worst of the muck while the gunners set up, sighted, and began firing their bombards. The first few salvos were exciting, all that flash and thunder. But after a while it was just so much noise, interfering with naps, dicing, or conversation.

Things picked up again mid-afternoon when the cannonade finally breached a section of wall. It wasn't much, just a ragged gap about a yard wide, dribbling stone and mortar down the sharp slope of the battered glacis. Still that was enough for Captain Auquins to call for an assault. Wisely not willing to lead a forlorn hope himself, he called for volunteers. The lack of enthusiastic response was a trifle awkward. But the Collegium's representative, a Deacon, we learned, by the name of Ambocello, gracefully eased the tension.

“Of course, Captain. I will happily provide you with a spearhead.” So saying, and robes and vestments somehow still pristine, the lesser magus set to work with powders and with candles the hue of dried blood that emitted charnel odors. By the time each of the bombards had fired once more a billow of multicolored smoke began to roil up from the center of the circle Ambocello had fashioned in the mud. The bestial, human-like form of a war-demon manifested within.

Volunteers were more plentiful now that they had this bulwark to mass behind. Not that I was among them. The van of the assault force was composed of the more heavily armored soldiers, primarily northern mercenaries with their heavy cuirasses and long, bludgeoning weapons. We more lightly armed and armored would follow along behind to exploit the breach.

I cheered on the lead element. It couldn't hurt to appear gung-ho. The war-demon, raging and bellowing, outstripped the van as he sprinted for the wall. But the enemy had had sufficient time to prepare a defense – a defense that included a war-demon of their own, rising up to meet ours as he reached the gap.

They collided like bulls in rut competing for the herd. The shock sent a few more stones tumbling down the glacis. The demons grappled, growling, hurling insults and dire imprecations. They bounced each other off of the interior faces of the breach, each concussion showering down a load of stone blocks and filler.

From beyond the wall I could hear defenders cheering on their champion as we were ours. It lacked only a book-maker taking wagers to complete the prize fight atmosphere.

I'd lost track of which demon fought for which side when one lunged forward to sink his fangs into the other's throat. The afflicted demon released a shriek like a scalded cat and drove the talons of both hands into the ribcage of his assailant, hoisted him off his feet and lurched forward, slamming both of them into one side of the breach. The impact visibly jarred each demon, and seemed to knock the fight out of them. They slumped down into the mud, unmoving. Then, amidst a rising cloud of acrid smoke both disappeared. They had each, it appeared, sustained too many injuries to remain.

A silence ensued. A pause fraught with disappointment and dismay. And then, having absorbed more structural damage than it could bear, the wall on either side of the breach collapsed into an avalanche of broken stone and rubble, leaving an open stretch two cart-lengths wide.

We needed no orders. Cheering, we stormed up the sloping glacis and poured through the gap.

The fight proved rather anticlimactic. The defenders were dispirited and demoralized. After a flurry of violence most yielded, a few fleeing within the castello, the final redoubt.

Despite Captain Auquin's release, his troops for the most part did give quarter to those who surrendered. Most of the defenders were mercenaries as well and a certain spirit of professional brotherhood pervaded.

Anyone else, of course, was fair game.

Prefect Orfeo was chief magistrate of the villages and freeholds within about twenty square miles of the castello. Many of the locals had fled within his walls upon learning of hostilities. Not all could fit within the castello and were forced to rely upon the protection of the outer walls. Therefor the situation was thus: the courtyard of the castello was the chicken coop; the unfortunate locals were the chickens; we were the foxes. It wasn't pretty.

After firing off a single round from my arquebus I tangled with one of the few defenders who bothered to put up a fight. By the time I'd hacked off his sword hand I was already late to the festival.

I retrieved my fouled arquebus and edged along the perimeter of the grounds, leaving clustered groups of the victors to their celebrations. It would have been a fine time for an organized troop to sally from the castello and counterattack. Probably would have driven us out handily despite our numerical advantage. But for the moment at least they were still cowed and flustered. By the time discipline could be instilled Captain Auquins would have the guns hauled through the breach, ready to batter down the castello and he'd be bringing his men to heel.

Meantime, I could search for any ungleaned leavings.

Around the back of the keep I glimpsed movement near a pile of refuse heaped near a burn-pit. The movement didn't recur, suggesting that someone was trying to hide from me.

I ambled that direction, not increasing my pace. I didn't want to flush the quarry. I skirted the mound of chicken bones, oyster shells, broken crockery, and other assorted detritus. The pit below still smoldered from the previous disposal.

There. A flash of limbs, long, unbound hair, skirts. A figure, a young woman scrambling to her feet to flee. I dropped the arquebus and had both arms wrapped around her waist within three strides. She thrashed, but only momentarily, then went limp with apparent resignation.

“Make it quick, please,” she said. “Don't hurt me. I won't struggle.”

All throughout the grounds I could hear the cries of those who were struggling. I don't know, maybe long months in the field on campaign left the mercenaries hard up. I'm a cosmopolitan, a bravo of some repute. Companionship I can have when I've the itch without the use of force. And it hadn't been that long.

“Relax, girl. Get yourself cleaned up, dressed in a decent frock, share a flagon of wine with me – then maybe you'd have to worry about your virtue.”

I loosened my grip and she turned to face me, perhaps taking in my disarming grin. She shrugged. “As you like,” she said, sounding more apathetic than reassured.

“What's your name? Are you part of the household here?” I asked.

“Heloise. I work in the kitchen.” It was the dull, flat voice of someone who knew and expected nothing better from life than a scullery maid's drudgery, punctuated by the occasional rape.

“Cesar,” I said, completing the formalities. “You've been working for Orfeo for how long, Heloise?”

“The Prefect? Long as I can remember. My mother was a maid and a wet-nurse here.”

“So you know the castello well?”“Of course. It's my home.”

“What would you think about helping me get in?”

An eyebrow hitched as calculations flashed beneath her unwashed mop of auburn hair. “What you want in for by yourself?” she asked.

“We're going to get in eventually,” I said. “So I figure, get in first, grab the choicest cut of the pillage. Do you object? Do you hold some loyalty to Orfeo?”

“The Prefect's a good enough sort. He never ill-treated any of us.” She was mulling it over, tugging at a grease-heavy lock. She shrugged “But I don't owe him no favors. Your lot is going to take over. One boss is as good as another, so I might as well have you look kindly on me.”

Reasoned well enough, I thought, but it didn't display much in the way of initiative or imagination. This life was all she knew and so framed her conception of possibilities. It didn't occur to her that she could escape it, learn a new mode of existence.

“I will look kindly on you, especially if you can find me a way in near the library,” I said, pouring all the charm I could muster into my rakish grin.

I couldn't decide if the expression on her face indicated incredulity or scorn. “I thought you wanted first crack at the prime loot. What do you want the library for?”

“I've heard rumors that’s where Orfeo squirreled away some of the best swag.” Close enough to the truth and this conversation had already dragged on long enough without me explaining the sought after quarto volume.

She looked skeptical but said, “Right. Follow me, then.”

“Wait.” I handed her the arquebus. “This should be sufficient token that you're with us. Hold it over your head so no one takes you for a threat. Five minutes after you get me into the castello go ask for Captain Auquins. Show him a way in, a different way if you have one. That's the best way for you to curry favor with the new landlords. Just make sure Aedile Claudio knows it was you who let us in, and you can move up from slops and onion chopping to sauces and chicken trussing.”

An outbuilding housing a root cellar concealed a tunnel that connected with the lower vaults and foundations of the castello. Following Heloise's directions I made my way to the top floor. It should have been perilous, if not impossible. The central keep was not large and was still generously supplied with defenders. But later additions and modernizing had increased the size and left behind narrow clandestine passages, employed primarily for discreet nocturnal visitations. Heloise had learned of these from her mother, who had, apparently, served in capacities supplementary to wet-nurse.

I emerged, appropriately enough, in a bedchamber. An open door on one side led to a music room, and through the doorway in the opposite side of the room opened the library. Straight across from the armoire from which I stepped a stairway spiraled to the levels below. Up it echoed voices raised in various tones of resolution and despair. The Prefect's troops were still reforming and rediscovering their courage.

Crossing the bedchamber, I paused to liberate a fine amethyst set in a wide silver ring, a gold and ivory cloak pin, and a stray silver spoon. If I escaped with nothing else these pieces constituted a substantial haul. Well, perhaps not the spoon. I would have rummaged through the wardrobe but I doubted any of Orfeo's shirts would fit. And he seemed to have a particular fondness for red. Not a color I found flattering. Even if, by some chance, he matched my physique, the odds were his provincial tailor wasn't in the same class as Donatello, to whom I gave my exclusive sartorial custom. No, best not to compromise on fashion.

The library was a wonder, featuring two tall cases crammed with grand folios, obesely stuffed books straining their bindings, and loose sheets weighted down with bric-a-brac. I snaffled a couple of the more valuable – and portable – pieces. The room itself bent at right angles, another door at the far end leading to the music room. The floor was a game board of alternating travertine and green marble.

I ran my fingers along the spines of the collection, feeling the fine-grained leather, wondering what stories the books contained, what information they could impart. I felt a keen awareness of my limitations and I didn't like it.

Then I saw the quarto volume.

It was conspicuous both for the flash of its silver chasing and for its size, a thick volume flanked by towering folios bound in severe black. I tilted it toward me and eased it off the shelf. It was heavier than I thought it would be, bound in a soft, buff-colored hide. Silver tipped each of the four corners of the cover. A cloth-of-silver ribbon poked up as a place marker. A band of silver, sewn into the cover, belted the book round, the clasp buckled, the buckle daubed with sealing wax for good measure. Tooled along the spine and across the front cover were symbols that I supposed spelled out the title.

The Aedile longed for this book. As did, from the evidence, the Collegium. What was so valuable about it? What was worth this expense and so many deaths?

I could not read. Breaking the seal would be a pointless exercise and only serve to direct the finger of suspicion at me upon delivering the quarto volume to Claudio. But somehow I knew I was going to open the book anyway. And abruptly I was equally certain that I wasn't going to turn the book over to the Aedile. I'm fickle that way.

I set the quarto volume atop a lectern, the dimensions of which suggested it was constructed for folios. The quarto volume appeared diminutive on the expanse of the inclined surface. My fingers poised over the clasp. But there was never any real doubt. The sealing wax snapped cleanly as I thumbed loose the clasp, hesitated.

I opened the book.

Dense print massed in formations, column and file, over the rough surface of the page. I thought for a moment that my eyes were tearing up for the letters appeared to shift, then shimmer. I blinked. No, it wasn't my eyes, nor was it a manifestation on the page itself. A film rose, distorting the print beneath. The film coruscated, rippling into a haze that spread and condensed into a fumarole of reddening smoke.

A demon materialized before me. He was squat, hairless except for a fringe hedging the bony plate of his skull. He wore an artisan's apron slotted with loops and pockets out of which protruded dozens of tools. Muscular arms terminated in wide hands and long, agile fingers tipped by clipped talons.

“Shall I set up here?” he asked, his voice like an agitated hornets' nest. He didn't appear much interested in my answer for without delay he set to work fitting a stanchion into an angle iron – both pieces which he seemingly retrieved from some storehouse not visible or accessible to me – and riveted the assemblage to the travertine.

“What are you constructing?” I asked.

“A printing press, of course.” Some sort of frame was in progress, assembled at an astonishing rate.

“And what will you print?”

“Copies of this quarto volume, of course,” he said, snapping out the words as he affixed a horizontal crossbeam to the frame. Tetchiness is intimidating when expressed by a demon.

“Now that is fascinating. What - just from curiosity, mind – does this quarto volume contain?” Absent any compelling need to fight one, it is my policy to avoid antagonizing demons. Questions, unfortunately, seemed to increase this demon’s native testiness. But I had to know.

“It is, inquisitive man, both a basic primer and a comprehensive treatise on theoretical and practical demonology.”

A conveniently located chair beckoned. Seemed to me the best way to absorb this wallop was to flop down into it. Dimly I was aware of the sound of conflict echoing up from the lower levels, but I did not yet heed it. For the moment the demon's revelation crowded out all other considerations.

I began to comprehend the Collegium's true interest. Commerce with demons was practically a monopoly for its initiates, north of the Mother Sea at least. The east and south produced their own practitioners. What would it mean for our virtual overlords if the knowledge to summon these otherworldly entities was available to anyone with the ability to read and the aptitude to learn? No need for entry to the hermetic world of the Collegium, no binding commitment to its authority, regulations, and creed? For that matter, what would it mean to the rest of us? The Collegium – think what one might about arrogance and the corruption of power – at least provided a check on the proliferation of demons. Its Members - the assorted Deacons, Rectors, Councilors and what have you, all the way up the Predicant – may not all be scrupulous, altruistic, or wholly devoted to the True Faith. In fact none of them might be. In my more cynical moments I consider that likely, though some of them seem decent enough fellows. Yet even were they villains to the last man their limited numbers prohibit blanket oppression. They seem more interested in internal squabbles and jockeying for power than in naked, iron-fisted domination. In the hands of the populace at large those built in governors – numbers and political in-fighting - would disappear. What would an unscrupulous man do with access to such power, absent the strictures of expectations, learned ethical guidelines (even if honored more in the breach), peer oversight, pressure and vigilance?

The demon, unconcerned with my musings, was constructing racks upon which he assembled rows of moveable type in letter cases.

“Each book will be identical?” I asked.

“Discounting imperfections in the paper and idiosyncrasies in the individual matrices, essentially yes, down to the summons built into the seal.”

I could sink no further into the chair though I felt as if all support had been yanked from beneath me. What would numberless unscrupulous men do with access to such power? I asked, needing to confirm my conjecture, “Wait, so each quarto volume opened will summon a demon to print countless more, each capable of infinite reproduction?”

“Even so. Are there more questions you'd care to belabor me with?”

Which was worse: concentrated power or diffuse, unfettered power? Was it right that knowledge be restricted? Was it worse for perilous knowledge to be freely disseminated? It made my head hurt. How should I choose? Did I have that right? Why me? All I'd had to do was mind my own business, sneak out with the book, collect my reward, and I'd never have to face this dilemma.

The demon hoisted a ream of paper onto a shelf built into his press. From his unseen warehouse he wrangled a barrel sloshing with ink.

A tumult of conflict, the shouts and ringing clashes of arms, grew nearer. Still I sat, riveted by my internal conflict. I could imagine the chaos this proliferation of knowledge and power might unleash. And yet. I had a life as free as I could imagine. I instinctively shrank from anyone attempting to impose his will on me and dictate my actions. Yet another reason I made a piss-poor soldier. Given my personal inclinations how could I presume to circumscribe the options available to others? By deliberately eliminating a possibility wasn't I dictating their actions? I could not be certain what any individual might do with this information, could not presume the worst of every man.

No. I would not impose restraints. I would not act the censor.

Then the battle boiled up the stairwell into the bedchamber, taking the decision from my hands.

Captain Auquins fought at the head of the onslaught. Two of the remaining trio of defenders fell, pulled down to be swallowed up in the threshing swords of the condotta. That left only a single man, standing at the head of the stairs, defying the invading force. By the red sleeves blousing from beneath his steel breastplate I hazarded he was Prefect Orfeo. He raised his sword, a rapier furnished with elaborate quillons and a finely etched blade. He saluted. Captain Auquins crossed blades with him. Once, twice. Then, with a deft upward thrust, the condottiere took Orfeo beneath the chin and up into the brain pain.

I was uncertain if Auquins saw me, seated and perhaps concealed by angles of doorway and shelving. But he certainly saw the demon, busily slotting letters into slats. Auquins must be aware of the true purpose of his commission. He could see that the chance had passed of securing the quarto volume and sequestering it deep in some dark vault beneath the Collegium. All that remained was damage control.

“Arquebusiers!” he ordered. “Grenadiers!”

It was, I deemed, time to make my exit. I slipped from my chair and snaked into the music room. I hid behind a rack of lutes while troops lumbered up the stairs to assemble in ranks behind the Condottiere. When the flash and thunder of arquebuses and the concussion of exploding grenados commenced I insinuated myself behind the head of the column.

I had, I thought later as I shuffled in turn down the stairs, spent enough time with the condotta. The loot I'd secured might be sufficient to buy my way out of trouble back in Plenum. I had connections, connections more inclined to be friendly upon receipt of funds. Perhaps while advocates and magistrates played through the farce I might use the time to learn to read.

Ken Lizzi is the author of thenovel Reunion (Twilight Times Books, 2014), and several published short stories, including "Bravo," in thePirates and Swashbucklers anthology (Pulp Empire, 2011), which also features the character Cesar the Bravo, and "Bargains" in the Big Bad Anthology of Evil (Kerlak Publishing, June 2013.)His story "Trustworthy", from the Noir anthology (Dark Horse Books, 2009) served as the basis for a multiple award winning short student film. His story, “The Fire Demon, or Brava” appeared in S&Sin May of 2015.

I parried late, re-directing the thrust intended for my chest to the thigh of my leading leg. Watching the thin blade bow into a half-circle I was grateful for the capped tip. It still hurt though. I stepped back, saluted to acknowledge the touch, then reengaged.

A dark-ringletted head peeked through the doorway to the salle. Had I not been otherwise occupied fending off a flurry of assaults, searching for an opportunity to counter, I'd probably have noted the round inquisitiveness of that large-eyed ten-year old girl-child's face. And the trace similarity of features she shared with my assailant. As it chanced, I was soon able to take in the entire picture of the moppet; Domenico landed a clean touch, signaling a halt. Perhaps the word 'touch' is insufficient. The little man connects with the power of a pike thrust. I was again thankful for the blunted foils and stiff leather fencing jacket.

“Watch the beat and subsequent thrust to prime, Cesar. Damn you, how many times must I remind you?” His verbal instruction was as gentle as his physical.

I gestured at the doorway beyond Domenico's shoulder. “Sorry, Maestro, but I was distracted.”

He pivoted with that easy fencer's grace that I try to emulate. Try and mostly fail. The lift and drop of his slim shoulders hinted at an exasperated sigh.

“Valentina, you know you are not to enter during classes,” he said.

Ignoring his admonishment, she entered bouncing, floor-length skirt flouncing. She hurled herself into Domenico's arms as he crouched to receive her. Indulgent father: a hitherto hidden aspect of his personality.

“Watch, father. I have been practicing,” she said after disentangling herself from his embrace. From some concealed pocket within her bodice she conjured a wickedly pointed bodkin. With a whip of her arm she flicked the little knife in a glittering whirl to strike one of the fencing mannikins in the center of its wooden torso.

“Nicely done,” I said. And it was. One does not expect a woman – let alone a girl – in Plenum to be plying sharp steel outside the confines of a kitchen.

“Oh, it is easy,” she said with the nonchalance of the newly skilled. “I'll show you.”

I cast an uncertain glance at Domenico.

“Only a fool fails to accept instruction when offered. One can learn lessons from anyone or anything, you shambling peacock.” Domenico’s gentle, affirming approach to instruction is, I think, his greatest attribute.

After that a half-hour long course in knife throwing was inescapable. It might have continued longer but for an interruption from Anacleto, Domenico's manservant.

“Sir, some foreign visitors have arrived requesting to observe a demonstration.” Anacleto appeared flustered. My interest was piqued. He was a difficult man to ruffle. I shot a glance at Valentina. She was vibrating with curiosity, shaming the efforts of a dozen puppies.

“Of course, Anacleto,” said Domenico. “Convey them to the salle. Valentina, please, off with you.” There was a stubborn set to her lip and a fractional second of nascent rebellion that gave way to obedience and she left us without even a petulant stomp. “Cesar, would you mind if we completed your lesson before an audience?”

“Next session provided at a discount?” I asked. A bravo of uncertain and intermittent income must seize – or manufacture – a bargain when he senses the opportunity.

“All right, you parasite, though I happen to know your purse still clinks when you walk.”

Bargain complete, we awaited the spectators.

Foreign visitors? Anacleto possessed a gift for subtle misdirection. I had been expecting some northerners, or perhaps Ihbarian fencing students wanting to observe how the Plenum style compared to their sweeping, florid school of swordsmanship. Instead a troop of Heathens strolled with an air of arrogant possessiveness into the broad, wood-floored salle. There were six of them, five in dun-colored robes and a sixth in dazzling, bleached-white wool. Two preceded the man in white and three brought up the rear. Each of the guards – for it seemed evident to me that was their function – gripped the haft of a square-bladed, spike-backed hatchet, thrust head down through the wide leather belts that secured their ankle-length garments. All six were bearded. In contrast to the groomed facial topiary sported in Plenum, their beards were wild, tangled foliage. Topping off the look, each man wore the flat-crowned, boxy, lambs-wool cap ordained by their outlandish beliefs.

Domenico and I shared a glance, eyebrows raised in synchronized quizzical arches. Unchoreographed, but, I felt, impressive. While we were not currently at open war with the Heathen, their presence was uncommon in Plenum, Throne of the Faith and site of the Collegium. What did their presence portend? And could I profit by it?

Domenico advanced to greet the party. One of the guards moved to intercept him.

“Welcome. I am Domenico. My man informs me you wish to observe a bout.” I could not tell if Domenico was addressing the guard or the august personage who required five bodyguards. In any event, it was the guard who responded.

“The Most Revered Purifier, Alfassan, Second Shield of the Believers and Husband of Three requires a demonstration of your barbarian sword play.” He delivered that mule train of titles with pride, a committed sycophant living in reflected glory.

Alfassan, his importance established to his satisfaction, stepped forward with a raised hand and a placatory smile to demonstrate he was at heart really one of us common fellows.

Or perhaps I read too much into the gesture.

“Please,” he said, “as I hope to be considered a guest, let us do without honorifics. I am Alfassan. I am merely an aficionado of martial skills and wish, as you say Domenico, to observe a bout.”

And so Domenico and I staged a show. The Heathens arranged themselves cross-legged around the salle, resting their backs against plastered brick walls. They were, as far as I could tell, utterly rapt as Domenico put me through my paces. I'm certain I earned my discount since Domenico was nearly as sheathed in sweat as I was when we finally put up our foils.

Alfassan pounded the floor with his open palm in appreciation. “That was thrilling, masterful, all I could have hoped for,” he said. “Thank you Domenico, and thank you...”

“Cesar,” I supplied, noting the frowns of his entourage when I failed to apply “revered sir,” or “most holy sheep buggerer,” or whatever was the appropriate groveling appendage.

“Allow me to show my gratitude.” He gestured and one of his men presented a fist-sized purse to Domenico. Yes, I definitely earned my discount. “And perhaps the two of you would care to share with me a flagon of wine.”

Domenico and I were developing quite the arsenal of shared quizzical glances. Were not Heathens prohibited from consuming wine? Still, breaches of heretical religious doctrine concerned me no more than my own breaches of the True Faith's doctrine.

Domenico politely declined. I, however, am always happy to cadge a free drink and so accepted the offer.

“Then, Cesar, once you have cleansed yourself, perhaps you can lead us to your favorite wine shop.”

Cleansed myself? Well, it had been some time since I had last risked a full immersion in water. As long as I didn't make a habit of it the occasional bath couldn't hurt.

***

We probably received a number of bemused looks as we paraded to Giacomo's wine shop: I, though still dripping from my bath, the picture of a stylish bravo from the top of my feathered cap, past the length of my rapier, to the curled tips of my shoes, leading this passel of grim-visaged Heathens along the dust covered bricks of the Course. A more upscale neighborhood or district further up the Course might have been appropriate. The Sabatine perhaps, or the Jancline. But I enjoyed a perverse delight at marching these glowering, self-important exotics among the filth-encrusted, fire-trap brick tenements of the Orine district, my impoverished neighborhood. Besides, Alfassan had requested my favorite wine shop.

Alfassan sat and drank with me. The others did not, instead standing cross-armed about the dim, low-ceilinged den of cut-rate iniquity that was Giacomo's, intimidating all but the bravest or drunkest patrons until the place was nearly emptied.

In silence Giacomo brought a flagon and two fired-clay cups, as unnerved by the invasion of Heathens as his clientele.

“You wonder at my drinking, do you not?” asked Alfassan, an easy smile breaching his beard.

“I own a passing curiosity,” I said.

“The Speaker did ordain an injunction against the consumption of intoxicants, it is true. However, the Mouth of the Divine also instructed – and the Speaker's instructions are complete in their perfection - that when transacting business with the Barbarian in furtherance of the Divinity's will one may emulate the customs of the Barbarian even in contravention of the Dictates of Purification.”

“And you are transacting such business in Plenum?”

“I am, at the behest of the Anointed First Shield. There has been, you may be aware, some disagreement concerning the rightful possession of certain islands in the eastern extremities of what you call the Cradle Sea. My embassy is to entreat the Predicant to employ the influence of his office and of the Collegium on those secular governments that wrongly lay claim to lands that belong to the Believers. Thus we hope to avert any need to assert our unquestioned rights more forcefully. If a few flagons assist my endeavors...” He tossed back a cup and refilled it.

He was a charming bastard. I almost liked him. And, as we paced each other cup-for-cup and story-for-story 'almost' dwindled.

I was hailing Giacomo for a third flagon when I spotted a familiar face. Under a stained wooden table, peeking out between a pair of three-legged stools, crouched Valentina. The little spy! I rose to escort her back to Domenico's. Best deal with her puppy-dog infatuation – understandable though it was – right away.

She must have guessed my intention. She scuttled out from beneath her concealment and darted out the door before I managed two strides in her direction. By the time I reached the doorway she had vanished.

I returned to the table to express my regrets and take my leave. Alfassan extended an invitation to meet him at the embassy – a modest shelter in the Sabatine district – and I left him to pay the fare. I had a fruitless search for a little girl to undertake.

***

The next day I summoned the courage to visit Domenico. True, I wasn't culpable for his daughter's escapade, but if she hadn't returned home – or even if she had – his displeasure would inevitably fall on the object of her pursuit – me. Fairness, rationality be damned.

As it happened I received a temporary reprieve. As I stepped into the daylight, adroitly hopping over the contents of an upended midden pot, I caught sight of Valentina. She was sucking on her lower lip, gazing across the street at the narrow, shadowed entrance to the dank tenement building where I rented my chamber - the rats and other assorted vermin paid naught, the miserable freeloaders. Her expression lightened when she caught sight of me and she bounded heedlessly across the street to meet me.

“Uncle Cesar, I was coming to see you,” she said.

Uncle Cesar? “How delightful. Why don't you tell me why you came to visit while we walk back to your father's home?”

“Fine, but I have to tell you about the red jewel and the bad man, and father doesn't believe me.” She reached up to clasp my hand and walked with me toward Domenico's, chattering non-stop.

I did not pay attention at first, grasping only at length that after scampering out of the tavern she'd decided to follow Alfassan. My attention heightened when she narrated sneaking into the palazzo that housed the embassy, describing it well enough that I recognized the very building. She wasn't just prattling.

“And then he went into this big room and I followed and hid behind a chair and he moved some furniture and drew on the floor and talked in some funny language and a big man made out of fire was there and he got a red jewel out of a pocket and the fire man went into the red jewel – woosh – and then he ate the red jewel, gulp! And then I ran home and told papa but he was mad and didn't believe me and sent me to bed with only a crust and three olives because I was bad and ran away and told lies. So this morning I snuck out to come see you and we can go fight the bad man before he kills the Predicant and burns the city like he told the fire man. See, I brought my bodkin.”

So she had. I confiscated the weapon under the guise of respectful examination and tucked it under my sword belt. I offered only non-committal evasions to her repeated exhortations to stage an assault on the Heathen embassy. It wasn't long before I was able to deposit her in the care of her worried father. Domenico was too relieved to do more than shoot me a glare that promised a rather intense bout during our next lesson. The threat almost entirely escaped me. I was too occupied reviewing Valentina's story. Domenico had not given it any credence, but too many plausible details lent the account a validity I could not ignore. I altered my steps to take me to the Sabatine district.

***

Walking the hills of Plenum provides ample time to reflect. And sweat, which does tend to yellow the brilliance of my shirts. While lamenting the need to launder this outfit again I realized that I hadn't dressed for work. My metal-reinforced leather jerkin still hung in that splintered, vertical coffin that my landlord unabashedly termed a wardrobe. I was walking into a potentially violent situation with nothing between my skin and sharpened steel but a layer of sweat-stained linen and my own skills with rapier and main gauche. And no one was paying me.

I risk laceration, perforation, or decapitation only for ready money. I'll goad some fool into a duel when properly recompensed by a cuckold. I'll insult the wife of an inconvenient business associate. I'll spill wine on a hot-headed political rival. I am willing, in short, to hazard my tender flesh in a fight if the compensation is sufficient. I'm skilled and experienced, true, and I overlook no advantage, but I recognize full well that when bare steel is employed in earnest even a novice might receive a providential turn of Dame Fortune's wheel. I don't do this for a lark. I don't hazard my life on the whimsies of a young girl.

Do I?

Such comforting ruminations brought me through twisting alleyways and closely packed hostelries, manufactories, and shops to the open boulevards and shaded palazzo's of the Sabatine district. Dust covered brick – soon to turn to a morass of muck when the first autumn rains saturated the dirt and shit that clogged the byways and thoroughfares – gave way to swept, stone-paved promenades.

The Heathen embassy was hardly a 'modest shelter.' The walled enclosure spread across a large lot on the sunset side of the Sabatine Hill, upon the crest of which were silhouetted such sections of the ruins of the Ancients that had not yet been scavenged for building materials. Neighboring estates vied with the embassy for the elegance of their neo-classical décor, abounding with plinths, columns, statues, and pediments – though I noted that the nude and semi-nude sculptures fronting the entry gate to the embassy were draped with heavy, dark cloth.

I was struck with a certain admiration for Valentina. Not only had she trailed Alfassan all this distance, she had also the temerity to sneak into the compound behind him. I wondered how I was going to do the same. And if I really meant to. He had, after all, summoned a fire demon.

Now, in Plenum, demons were not exactly a novelty. Many members of the Collegium were Magi, and these Magi – our lords and masters – were skilled demonologists. I was familiar with their use of demons as tools of war, bodyguards, healers, even as domestics or skilled craftsmen. In the course of my career I've had my dealings with various of these familiar spirits and so was not frozen with fear at the prospect of encountering another. Still – demon. And a fire demon with – if Valentina's account was to be trusted – the capacity to raze the city. This was not something I was eager to face.

I tapped my fingers a brief tattoo on the pommel of my rapier, took a deep breath, and strode to the front gate. Lacking a plan, I'd have to rely on boldness before good sense regained its proper ascendency.

The gate was unlocked. In fact the thick wooden panel was ajar. I pushed it open and followed close behind its swinging entry.

The sentry inside was not expecting callers. He was kneeling, almost prostrate, in the Heathen attitude of worship, a robed lump in my path. His head lifted as I neared and I recognized him as one of Alfassan's entourage.

I'd kept my hands a conspicuous distance from the hilts of my blades with the half-formed notion of claiming an invitation from Afassan. But the praying sentry offered me no chance to employ the stratagem. He surged to his feet like an acrobatic bear and rushed me. He tugged the hatchet from his belt and hollered something in a tongue that modulated from guttural to ululating.

So much for subterfuge.

I didn't have time for my rapier to clear leather. My left hand reached back to where the grip of the main gauche rode at my left hip. My right hand I raised to intercept his wrist, halting the descent of the blocky little axe striving to bury itself in my skull.

I kept my brainpan intact, but the bodyguard rendered my hat both practically and aesthetically useless. I continued to hold death at bay with my right hand. My left brought the parrying dagger around in a tight arc to bury it knuckle guard deep in ribcage.

He wheezed into my face a mixture of fetid breath and blood then slid off of the short blade, collapsing onto his back, eyes open and glazing.

I looked past the corpse to the house, expecting a sally of murderous Heathens from the front entrance. Nothing. Well, my play then. Leaving my violated hat where it lay, transferring the main gauche to my off hand and drawing my rapier, I sprinted across the pave courtyard to the door.

The door was a thick plank set within a squared-off lintel over which curved a purely decorative arch. It was closed but not, as a quick experiment proved, locked, leaving me suspicious if I were about to pass into a lurking gauntlet of hatchets. Still, I'd come this far.

I put my shoulder to the door and followed it in, just as I'd done with the gate. I was inside a large, square antechamber, evenly set with pilasters about the walls, providing illusory support to a high, coffered ceiling. Doors in the center of each wall granted egress. I discovered why I hadn't yet been set upon by the remaining guards: they were busy packing.

Four bearded, robed men looked up from their tasks at open trunks as I entered. As one they straightened, reaching for their little axes.

The four of them spread out, bellowed something unintelligible in inharmonious chorus, and came for me. My skin tightened, maybe trying to keep my bones from fleeing. But I was calm at the core, beneath a thick layer of fear.

I didn't wait for them to reach me. I feinted to the left, went right, relying on my one advantage: the reach of my rapier. The Heathen on the far right swept down his hatchet in a desperate attempt at a parry. He failed. The tip of the rapier grazed his descending forearm before sinking into his chest.

I was disengaging blade from flesh when the nearest guard plowed into me with his left shoulder, driving me back while he brought down his axe. The bell guard and forte of my main gauche caught him on the wrist, the blade's edge cutting him to the bone and deflecting the axe blow. Instead of splitting my skull he shaved off a patch of hair over my forehead, sheering off skin with it.

We moved apart, the shock of our respective wounds instigating a reflexive retreat. Unfortunate reflex for him: close range was his friend, distance mine. He provided me room to ply my long blade and I did, pinking him high up in the thigh, puncturing an artery. That put him out of the fight just as the remaining two arrived.

Blood from my scalp wound was seeping through my eyebrows, threatening my vision. Good, maybe I wouldn't be able to observe my own death. The cut began to sting. I blinked away blood. The pain, however, remained.

One hit me high, the other low and we fell in a heap, with me absorbing the brunt of the impact with the floor. I was lucky the blow didn't empty my lungs. It was still a tenuous position, me supine, my two assailants struggling up to a posture to deliver axe blows.

Just a day ago Domenico had told me that lessons could come in any form. True enough. Domenico wsn't my first instructor in the combat arts. The sword wasn't my first skill. I'd grown up learning the rough-and-tumble of the street fight brawling in the gutters with other urchins, gouging, biting, and kicking over a crust of bread or a scrap of gristly meat. That sort of early ingrained competence doesn't easily disappear.

It was a sharp, brutal affray, a desperate struggle flopping, bucking, and rolling across a bruising marble floor. I dropped my rapier as a hindrance. To my right the man who'd hit me low was up on his knees, preparing to bring his hatchet smashing down. My right hand shot inside his robes. I clutched the hairy pair of brains within his smallclothes and squeezed. Squealing, he released the hatchet and both of his hands clutched my wrist.

To my left the Heathen who'd hit me high was having a bit more trouble, tangled up in his robes. He punched awkwardly at my head, impeded by sleeve trapped under his knee. He scrambled to his knees. His hatchet descended, a short-armed blow. I punched up with the main gauche, driving it up beneath his chin. The hatchet cut a shallow groove in the back of my shoulder, deprived of most of its force. The bodyguard toppled, a jet of blood appearing to propel him backwards.

The remaining assailant bore down on my wrist, driving his thumbs in deep until I loosened my grip. Fine, I didn't need him by the balls any longer. My red dripping short-blade did its work once more, leaving me master of the field.

I staggered, battered and bleeding, to my feet. Death of a thousand cuts here. It was going to take a lot of wine to deal with the pain.

The Heathen with the leg wound sat on the floor, back against a pilaster, both hands clamped down against the punctured artery.

I stooped to regain my rapier then placed the point against his forehead.

“Where is Alfassan?” I asked.

“Too late. He has gone to keep his appointment with the Predicant, whom he will purify with fire.” He spat at me, but it was a feeble effort. His face was a pallid, bleached mask. He'd bleed out soon.

What was my move now? I left the dying Heathen to his fate and poked thoughtfully about for valuables, going through the robes of the fallen while I pondered.

A door opened. A dozen of the household staff crowded behind. Probably not Heathens, but here I was, looting, surrounded by punctured corpses. As far as they were concerned I was just an armed robber.

They gathered their courage and tentatively shuffled in. That was my signal. I tucked a couple meager purses beneath my sword belt and fled.

***

The Collegium, that city within a city, abuts the Jacline district, the cliff faces and swelling hills creating a vast pocket for it to nestle within. But the Collegium's frontage slopes toward the Cloatus River. That meant that my route led primarily downhill. Battered, uncertain of the severity of my injuries, I was grateful to be spared laboring upslope. Of course the jarring descent of the steeper downhill passages sent waves of pain rolling from my heels to the crown of my bleeding head.

The sleeve of my shirt was torn and stained. A total loss. So I didn't scruple to tear it loose and wind it around my brow as a makeshift bandage. It would at least keep the blood from my eyes.

I hoped the purses I'd scavenged would pay my tailor for fresh clothes. Donatello is an artist and does not employ his needle cheaply. And he does not offer credit. At least not to me.

Such thoughts kept my mind off of the pain from my wounds and occupied my attention as I put on as much speed as my bruised frame allowed. My hope was that Alfassan was in no hurry and that I could catch him before he reached the Collegium gates. The guards would certainly not allow me through in my state. By the time I could convince anyone of the danger Alfassan would have already loosed the demon.

I wish more of my hopes proved so well-founded. Alfassan wasn't rushing. I spotted him idling before me, approaching the Bridge of Virtues, the span leading across the Cloatus to the Fortalice of Peace. The Fortalice of Peace, hunkering on the opposite bank squat and drum-like, is the Predicant's retreat, and I use that term in both its recreational and defensive senses. From there the Predicant could recover from such mentally taxing endeavors he actually performed while still keeping an eye on his seat across the Cloatus, or shut himself securely away if the Collegium itself should be sieged.

I summoned what additional speed I could muster. Alfassan was not far from the environs of the Collegium. Even now I could catch glimpses of sections of the wall through gaps in the treetops and among the ornate banking houses, permanent embassies, city government buildings, and other official structures that clustered near the true power of Plenum.

I wheezed up behind Alfassan just as he was passing the end of the gently arching bridge, the graceful granite depictions of Fidelty and Truth standing guard at the terminus of each balustrade. He heard me and spun about. Only a deaf man could have missed my unsteady lumbering with its punctuations of pained grunting and labored inhalation. I was tired and wounded, damn it. Stealth was not on option. I wasn't sure fighting was either.

The surprise he displayed upon seeing me was almost comic. And that surprise allowed me time to produce my sword. If I'd not been so fatigued it might also have allowed me time to run him through. But, alas, no.

He stepped back a pace and from beneath his robe he dragged a massive yataghan, a heavy implement of butchery, with a single-edged, slightly serpentine blade.

“Cesar,” he said, a smile snapping shut the shocked gap in his beard, “how splendid to see you. You have perhaps been – ah – offering my men complimentary fencing lessons?”

“Not complimentary, no. They all paid.” Perhaps I could cow him into surrender with my finely-honed talent for braggadocio.

Again, alas no.

“One more lesson then, Cesar. Your last.” The Heathen gripped the huge chopper in both hands and shifted to an open stance, right foot behind and at right angles to the left.

“Why, Alfassan?” I held up a hand to forestall an immediate reply or attack. “Not 'why kill the Predicant.' I can guess that. Why the lesson yesterday? Why the wine and conversation?”

He relaxed, still on guard, but not primed to strike. “Understand, Cesar, I am not returning from the Collegium alive. Whether I manage my audience with the Predicant or only manage to release the demon within the walls, the outcome for me is the same. I will perish in flame. But so will the Collegium. And in the ensuing conflagration so will much of Plenum. Yes?”

I nodded, not so much acknowledging his point as inviting him to continue. I wondered how accurate his prediction truly was. The Collegium held the world's foremost demonologists. Certainly they possessed the skill and knowledge to contain a single demon. Didn't they?

Alfassan took my cue and carried on. “A man with such foreknowledge of his own incipient demise has a certain license to indulge in final pleasures. I like witnessing skilled combat. I like wine and stimulating conversation. I enjoy the other activities that I allowed myself upon return to the palazzo.

“Now that I have, I hope, alleviated your curiosity, I will kill you before we attract an audience. It makes little difference; even at this remove from the walls the demon will still engulf the city. But I would like to see this through as designed.”

With that he twitched back to full readiness with disturbing ease. He hiked the yataghan to shoulder height and charged. Any thought I might have held of leaving the defense of Plenum to others was rendered moot.

He fanned a zephyr above my head as I ducked. Even ducking hurt. I managed to pink him as he leapt back out of range, perforating him somewhere beneath the folds of his robe. In proper condition I would have...but I wasn't and so had to rely on what my abused frame could offer.

I tugged out the main gauche and summoned up a grin. “Lesson one,” I said, displaying the reddened tip of my rapier. His fresh droplets glistened against the darkening varnish of his lackeys' blood.

“A touch,” he acknowledged, and attacked again, a more cautious, probing assault directed at my leading leg. My jarring parry sent ripples of pain through my arm.

Alfassan renewed his attack, applying more vigor with each blow. He began to drive me back, step-by-step. I would not be able to hold him off much longer.

He sensed his moment and hoisted the yataghan overhead, poised to messily bisect me.

Too soon. I stepped forward, crossing my blades scissor fashion and caught his cleaver just as it began to descend. A twist of my wrists and I guided the yataghan downwards, to my right. A flick with the parrying dagger and I cut deeply into Alfassan's right forearm. The yataghan grazed the edge of my calf before it clanged to the paving stones. Wonderful, not a piece of my outfit remained intact. Not much of my skin, either.

“Lesson two,” I said.

His eyes wide with pain or rage – or both, probably both – Alfassan backpeddled.

“Thank you for the lesson, Cesar,” he said when brought up short by the raised pavers lining the brink of the Cloatus rolling sluggishly a dozen feet below street level. “Not every endeavor will succeed as designed.”

He spread his arms wide, cruciform, and began to chant, his guttural syllables entirely unintelligible to me.

The air warmed. A hint of sulfur wrinkled my nostrils. A waft of steam rose from Alfassan's robes where they bunched at his midsection.

He was calling forth the fire demon! Only a dozen paces from me, but he might as well have been a hundred. I could not limp close enough to shove my rapier through his chest before he completed his summoning.

A glow began to emanate from his eyes, then his exposed skin. His chant took on a higher, more fervid note. The steaming grew more pervasive and the air about him shimmered, the temperature even where I stood creeping from warm, to uncomfortable, to hot.

I took a painful step forward – a futile gesture was still a gesture. Then I stopped. I seemed to hear Domenico's voice in my head. “Even a small child can teach you something.” And “You shambling peacock.”

I remembered the bodkin tucked away at my belt. Releasing my rapier, I plucked free the little knife, recalling Valentina’s lessons. I cocked back my arm, knife clutched between thumb and two fingers, sighted at my target whose glow was beginning to acquire an actinic quality, and threw.

The bodkin described three complete arcs before embedding itself in Alfassan's chest. The chanting stopped. But the heat continued to intensify, the glow reaching a near white-hot brilliance, forcing me to squint. Lines of red cracked through the luminescence, jets of flame bursting free. The demon was at hand.

Then Alfassan staggered. His heel caught the stone curbing and he fell straight back, disappearing. A moment. A splash. Then a great pillar of steam boiled up with the hissing of a thousand angry cats, spreading into a canopy of heated water vapor.

Stooping like an arthritic old man I recovered my rapier then gradually straightened and shuffled away. No way was I explaining this. I hoped the coin I'd scavenged from Alfassan's bodyguards would recompense the pain. And I hoped there was enough to purchase Valentina a new bodkin.

Ken Lizzi is the author of the novel "Reunion" (Twilight Times Books, 2014), and several published short stories, including "Bravo," in thePirates and Swashbucklers anthology (Pulp Empire, 2011), which also features the character Cesar the Bravo, and "Bargains" in the Big Bad Anthology of Evil (Kerlak Publishing, June 2013.)His story "Trustworthy", from the Noir anthology (Dark Horse Books, 2009) served as the basis for a multiple award winning short student film.

Editor

Curtis Ellett is a frustrated fantasy writer and a founding member of the 196 Southshore Writers' Group. He has lived on three continents, studied archaeology and worked as a newspaper ad designer and a bookseller. He now gets paid to write. Find him on Twitter @CurtisEllett.